The first act of the Estates was to proclaim the Prince of Wales king of Great Britain, their next to send a deputation to Holland to invite him to take possession of his kingdom.  It had been better both for Charles and for Scotland that the invitation had never been accepted.  The terms on which alone the Scots would see the son of Charles Stuart back among them as crowned king were such as only the direst necessity could have induced him to accept:  they were such as it seems now amazing that even the most bigoted and inexperienced could really have believed that the son of his father, or, indeed, any man in his position, would keep one moment longer than circumstances compelled him.  But his advisers, led on by Wilmot and Buckingham, bid him sign—­sign everything, or all would be lost.  He signed everything.  First he put his hand to the Solemn League and Covenant:  then to a second declaration promising to do his utmost to extirpate both Popery and Prelacy from all parts of his kingdom:  finally, he consented to figure as the hero of a day of public fasting and humiliation for the tyranny of his father and the idolatry of his mother.  And while he was acquiescing to each fresh demand with a shrug of his shoulders and a whispered jest to Buckingham, and in his heart as much hatred for his humiliators as he was capable of feeling for anybody, he was all the while urging on Montrose to strike that wild blow for his crown which was to lead the brave marquis to the scaffold.  The deaths of Hamilton and Huntly had preceded the death of Montrose by a few weeks:  a few more weeks and Charles was in Scotland, a crowned king in name, virtually a prisoner.  Within little more than a year the fight at Dunbar, and the “crowning mercy” of Worcester, had bitterly taught him how futile was all the humiliation he had undergone.

It will be enough to briefly recall the main incidents of the years which intervened between the battle of Worcester and the Restoration.  After the establishment of the Protectorate an Act of Indemnity was passed for the Scottish people.  From this certain classes were excepted.  All of the House of Hamilton, for instance, and some other persons of note, including Lauderdale:  all who had joined the Engagement, or who had not joined in the protestation against it:  all who had sat in Parliament or on the Committee of Estates after the coronation of Charles at Scone:  all who had borne arms at the battle of Worcester.  From this proscribed list, however, Argyle managed to extricate himself.  He had fortified himself at Inverary, and summoned a meeting of the Estates to which the chiefs of the Royalist party had been bidden.  To conquer him in his own stronghold would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, to English soldiers unused to such warfare.  Cromwell wisely preferred to negotiate, and Argyle was not hard to bring to terms.  He bound himself to live at peace with the Government, and to use his best endeavours to persuade others to do so.  In return he was to be left unmolested in the free enjoyment of his estates, and in the exercise of religion according to his conscience.